Macedonia REASONS BEHIND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TURKISH URBAN DWELLINGS IN THE BALKANS

Abstract

The Balkan Peninsula has a rich rural and urban history and a variety of Turkish civil settlements. As regards Turkish civil architecture, it is widely scattered around these geographic locations. Materials have been found from the city core of certain Balkan cities from 8 countries as follows: (Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Macedonia,Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro) where numerous examples of traditional Turkish urban dwellings still remain. These countries and 37 adjoining cities were visited by time and various materials were gained for the purpose of completing this project. In the course of this project, materials were collected from their respective municipalities about their city core and former photographs were compared with photographs and notes taken by travelers in Turkish history, as recorded by Turkish archives. While they have disappeared inmany areas, there have also been attempts in certain locations to maintain andrestore them back to their former condition. Undoubtedly, tourist developments canserve as a spear head for such protective measures. However, some examples can benoted much earlier than the flourishing of tourism sector, and as such were initially discovered in the Balkan area. Consequently, protected samples are not only evidence of tourist interest and objective. In this research, thorough analysis of this landscape change in the Balkan geography has been carried out free of bias toward any idea or partiality in favor of any political opinion, free of any kind of prejudice or discrimination. As a result, analyzing the past can pave the way to building a harmonious future with regional diversity and to preserve cultural geography intheir habitats.